Lions' Campbell: 'We have to start over,' talks 3rd down run and 2nd half collapse in NFC title game loss

ALLEN PARK, Mich (FOX 2) - The day after the Detroit Lions lost 34-31 in the NFC Championship game to the San Francisco 49ers, Coach Dan Campbell spoke to the media about how to move forward.

Campbell told the media he was proud of his team - which won the NFC North Division title and picked up the first and second post-season franchise wins in 32 years. He also said, the challenge to stay at that level and get better, gets harder.

"Our guys' eyes are open. This should be the ultimate motivation," he said. "To push forward, and it will be for us. We'll learn and move on."

Cambell also addressed the play that cost the Lions their first time out of the second half. Trailing 34-24 with 1:05 left, a run play from the NIners' 1-yard line was stuffed for -2 yards.

The Lions were forced to then call timeout before scoring on fourth down and forcing an onside kick recovery attempt - rather than have a chance to use all three timeouts and get the ball back.

Cambell's answer? In hindsight, he was wrong.

"The easy thing to do would have been to throw it. It probably should have been the right thing," he said. "For me, I wanted to run it. I thought we would pop it. You know, two-minute (offense) all the way down the field, throwing the football. And they were in a four-down front and I believed we would walk right in. We just missed a block.

"And so then, yeah, I've got to use a time out.  Hindsight, you know, throw it four times. But I believe in that moment it would be a walk-in run and it didn't work out. So I gambled and lost."

The third-year coach also fielded questions about the disastrous second-half where a 24-7 halftime lead was lost, amid a 27-point straight onslaught by San Fran.

"This is what you hear about all the time when it comes to catastrophes. It doesn't take one or two - it takes 12 things to go wrong and we did all 12 of those wrong in all three phases," Campbell said. "And ultimately, where we've been so good is when one area is struggling a little bit, the other two pick them up. We've been really good about that. And that was the game in the second half where all three phases just, we were not good.

"We continued to make mistake after mistake after mistake in all three phases. And when that happens that is where a game like that against a very good opponent, their guys showed up man."

Campbell also spoke about the strong foundation the Lions have built in the past three years. He said that improving the talent will be important - but the fit has to be right. He spoke about targeting players to bring in who share the same mindset as the current roster.

"There is no level of talent that is worth bringing in something if it doesn't fit what we're about in there," he said. "That's very important. We have to start all over. We have the foundation there are things where we won't have to start all the way from scratch, but there's got to be that hunger, that work, that attention to detail, that urgency.

"If you think that you're just walk out there because you made the NFC Championship game, you've got another thing coming. That's how you become average in a hurry."